romance fiction – red dust to big smoke

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Monthly Archives: June 2009

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The things we do in the name of research – the things we make our husbands do in the name of research!!

As you’ve probably guessed my current wip involves a ghost, so in the name of research I sat down to watch ‘Death of a Ghost Hunter’ tonight and of course, cos I’m a total wimp, I made my hubby watch it too.

Aside from the bad acting, I was quite freaked in various stages but I think this was because they made out that the movie was based on a true story. Too bad I looked it up after and found out it was a hoax along the lines of the ‘Blair Witch Project.’ Oh and the three main characters were TSTL!! Really… they were just thick!

But the REALLY, REALLY freaky thing?

I tried to save an image of the DVD cover to post to this blog and couldn’t. That’s right… tried numerous different images and although they said they’d saved to my computer, when I went to post (it said they’d been posted), it wouldn’t work. So alas… I can’t show you the cover!!

Movie watching aside, I’m calling it quits in my attempt to write 30k in 30 days. I’m just not woman enough to cope with all the lack of sleep and still churn out a regular 1k a day that I actually think is good enough! So… no more daily word counts or fave lines. If you wanna know my progress, watch the word metres on the side, which will hopefully continue to creep up at a nice, sensible pace – lol!!

Nearly there… well… not exactly! It’s nearly the end of June but I’m almost 10k short of my 30k goal.

Why? It’s not so much because I had those few days away from writing completely… more that I CAN’T switch off the internal editor and I’m actually struggling to decide whether this is a bad thing or not.

Let me elaborate…I’m almost 26k into my 60k story. They h&H have done the deed but I’m not sure they should have yet. I could just plod on writing and hope that I’ll be able to fix this if it’s wrong in the rewrites, well I could… but I just can’t. I seem to NEED to have the scenes that come before the one I’m writing pretty much right before I can continue. So I’m umming and ahhing about whether to do some rewriting and insert a scene or two or to leave the book as is! It’s a nightmare!!!

Anyway enough whinging.

Word count (last two days cos I forgot to count yesterday): 1638

Fave Line of the day/s:

‘You’re not one of those women who channel Oscar The Grouch before they’ve had coffee and a shower are you?’

Day Twenty-Six (yep… I think that’s the right date, am a little lost on such things if I’m honest)

Word Count: 1472 (but I’m not at all enthralled by any of them)

Fave Line of The Day (see above, but I’ll put one in for the hell of it):

‘I suppose you believe in aliens, UFOs and the Loch Ne

ss Monster as well,’ she said, trying to sound flippant.

Total word count thus far: 19211

I had a lovely (okay, rainy and rather exhausting few days) away with the hubby and the three heroes-in-training. Didn’t get any writing done (but wasn’t expecting or planning too) as you can see by my dismal June NaNo word count, but I did finish

reading ONE book. I know… only ONE but honestly… it was an exhausting kind of holiday.

Luckily that one book was one that now rests on my KEEPER SHELF. It’s…. DRUMROLLL…

This is only the second Anne McAllister I’ve ever read but I’m on a serious mission to hunt down her backlist now. This is the devilishly delicious Hugh and the feisty Syd’s story – both the kind of characters I absolutely adore. Hugh is a very unusual Presents hero (and frankly, I’d like to see more of him – no, not like that, you naughty minded blog readers you – I meant more of his type). He’s sexy and good-looking (obviously) but he’s a little dishevelled, lives in a beach shack, has a puppy for a best pal and likes to take it easy and enjoy life as well as work hard.

But probably the best thing about the book is that she had me from PAGE one with a totally unique opening. I’m not gonna spoil it for those who wanna hunt this baby down… but let’s just say, it’d be worth the read.

Anyway Anne’s book got me thinking about openings and how they affect my own writing. I’ve realised that I can’t actually plan a book unless I have the opening in my mind already. All the books I’ve written thus far have either started with a title or an opening scene (and usually the other has followed quickly on the heels of the first), yet if I don’t have a title or a clear first scene in my head, I totally flounder.

Not one word written on either of my wips today – whoops! And we’re off on holiday for a few days tomorrow and both hubby and I are NOT taking our laptops, so I won’t be writing. Hopefully I’ll have some time to read some good books though 🙂

This little break will mean meeting my goal of 30k in 30days is unlikely… but I’m happy with what I’ve achieved this month and will continue to write regularly throughout the rest of June and beyond.

Anyway I know I promised you a pic of my current heroine – Imogen Lewis – and believe me… she’s stunning… but for some reason my computer won’t let me save the pic!!! 😦

I was lucky enough to win this over at Lynn’s blog, so I’ve had a sneak peak before most other people down under *gloating*. I can see why Lynn won the Instant Seduction contest, she certainly has a way with words. I won’t say too much about Rebecca and Alejandro’s story because I don’t want to ruin it for you, but let’s say my heart was pumping wildly only ten pages from the end when I was SURE there was no way for these two to get their act together. I was seriously worried… but (of course) the HEA came good and it was a lovely feel good ending.

For me one of the best things about Lynn’s book was that Alejandro was a seriously DARK hero and the lovely Rebecca totally reformed him. Isn’t that just the best thing about romance? The heroine’s ability and power to transform?!

Old men making digs at each other about their gammy legs, false teeth, nagging wives, crushes on celebrities, all trying to make the others look foolish in front of the token lass. And the intelligent young woman laughs at their jokes, smiles sweetly, gets up to dish out gourmet deserts, then stuns them when she lays her winning hand on the table time and time again.

Total Thus Far: 13298

This arvo while all my boys were outside in the garden, I decided to treat myself to a movie. While shaping meatballs and then folding washing I watched an old favourite of mine – ‘How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days.’ I was watching and thinking about something Anne McAllister said on her blog recently about the ‘Fun and Games’ in the middle of a book. It reminded me that sometimes watching a great romance on film is just as good for analysing how a great story should piece together! Yay… for watching movies!

His eyes lit up when they saw her, but then they looked past, registering on him and nearly popped out of their sockets.

Total Thus Far: 12 301 (oh dear… behind the count now)

But I’m not gonna get too down about my dismal effort today, cos yesterday I found out I finalled in the Romance Writers of New Zealand Great Beginnings contest. The story that finalled is the one (partial) currently with Lucy Gilmour and the judge in this contest is Editor Kimberley Young – hoping they both like it!

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about me

Writer for MIRA and Carina Press, Supermarket owner, "retired" English teacher (don't hold that against me), undomestic goddess, proud wifey and mum of three incredibly gorgeous heroes-in-training! Life is good :)